


did you think that you were dreaming?

by softlyforgotten



Category: Bandom
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-22
Updated: 2010-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-22 22:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyforgotten/pseuds/softlyforgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The superpowers AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	did you think that you were dreaming?

In the shadows, they stand like a set of oddly taken photographs: edges dark and clear cut, faces hazy, shadow-territory. That is the first time Jon sees them. Brent is talking somewhere behind him, and Jon wonders absently where he would fit in should he be there – between Ryan and Spencer and the quiet strength of their friendship, maybe, or breaking apart the slightest whisper of Brendon and Ryan’s fingers touching. And though in the next moments Brendon bounces over to drape an arm over him and Spencer saunters forward, grinning, the strange, solemn sight of them in the growing dusk will always be the way they stay in his mind.

 

 

 

On stage, the first few nights he concentrates simply on fitting in to the indents where their feet have worked; here, to swing forward; here, to close his eyes and bite his lip. It is a mix of intuition and planning, and it takes him a while to notice the nights where, for a few seconds at most, Brendon is inexplicably half an inch taller, when light flickers oddly over Ryan’s guitar in a way that makes Brendon glance over anxiously. Jon notices it all and tries to fit it in with the choreography and the spontaneity, tries to slot it all into place.

He sees Spencer watching him cautiously in the moments before the song, and smiles at him, as though it is a gift, as though it is a promise. Spencer only watches him, eyes narrowed as though he’s searching for something, and then he smiles back, seconds too late, and looks away.

Jon closes his eyes against the sweep of the lights and concentrates on the pluck of his fingers against strings – falling into the gap left for him. Brent must be shorter, he thinks dizzily, the air is just a little too tight.

 

 

 

After a while Jon becomes accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of the band (his band), the small things that used to make him go ‘wait, what?’ as they raced past him, seeming to not need to have a whole conversation, minds linking ideas without thinking. He thinks it might be something magic until he realises with a start that the reason it is so familiar is because that’s how Gerard and Mikey talk.

And as none of them are brothers, Jon is confident that he can learn this language.

He’s comfortable here, with the warm reach of Brendon’s grin and the simple complexity of Ryan, and Spencer who watches him all the time, looking almost afraid, until one day Jon opens his mouth and tries to say _I’m not going anywhere, Spence, I’m really not_ , but instead says _wanna go see a movie?_

Spencer nods, not looking even a little bit surprised, and they watch some terrible action movie, with breathy pauses between characters illustrating their skills (Jon thinks he’s obviously been hanging around Pete too much; his mind translates it automatically into an ironic ‘skillz’) at on-screen chemistry and plot holes as large as the tour bus. Jon whispers sarcastic asides in Spencer’s ear throughout the movie and Spencer laughs and laughs, dizzily, smothering his mouth with his hand so that the other people in the theatre don’t glare at them. On the way out, Spencer leans against him for just a moment, feet moving automatically, and Jon feels the weight of him and catches his breath for just a moment, just the one small moment before Spencer walks properly again. Jon itches to brush some of the hair out of Spencer’s eyes, but it’s not Brendon he’s with, after all, there are places to stop.

 

 

 

Brendon scowls at the coffee table and drums his hands on it, dum dada dum dada dum, and Jon raises an eyebrow at him, says, “What’s up?”

Brendon grins sheepishly at him, startling out of the glare. He stands up and grabs his travel bag, slings it over one shoulder. “I hate planes,” he says briefly, and holds out his hand for Jon to take. “Fucking waste of time. Anyway. Let’s go.”

 

 

 

And then there are the things that he doesn’t understand. Ryan and Brendon fight all the time, over stupid little things like who hate the last cookie when they fucking _knew_ I wanted it and hadn’t had any of the others, seriously, oh my God? And Brendon playing video games at top volume when Ryan’s trying to write and Ryan being a snooty pretentious little bitch and how it just gets fucking _tiring_ some days, so can you just shut up? These are the normal things that fit with the band, like the way Spencer snaps at Brendon and no one cares, and the way if you try and talk to Ryan when he’s crouched over the little black notebook there is absolutely no fucking way you can get him to answer you. _These_ things he understands, and he knows how to deal with them, and that makes them easy.

The first day he sees Ryan and Spencer fight, it’s like watching a war. Their voices are horribly, terrifyingly low (except for the occasional outbreaks – Ryan’s “ _no_ ”, and then the startled look around, as if when they’re quiet no one ever notices them), and Brendon bites his lip and fidgets, and Jon tries not to look at them. Eventually Spencer bangs out of the bus and Ryan slinks off to his bunk and Brendon looks at Jon and bites at his nail.

“Okay,” he says eventually, voice unusually calm. “So I’ll go talk to Ryan, and you do Spencer.” (And then, because he is, after all, Brendon, he snickers a little.)

Jon nods and they move off, like soldiers in a perfectly executed battle plan.

 

 

 

Spencer has shoved his hands in his pockets and he walks along kicking at a stone. If it was Ryan or Brendon, Jon knows, they’d be putting a little more into it, and making their face as desolate as possible (until Brendon started laughing. until Ryan looked up and you made a face at him and he smiled, _really_ smiled, in the stomach-turning, nerves-singing way that only Ryan’s smile can do to you), but because it’s Spencer he just looks absolutely furious.

Jon walks up to him and says, “Hey,” and Spencer makes an small, angry noise and hunches his shoulders more, digging his hands further into tight jeans. “Hey, Spence,” he says again, and Spencer looks at him, just looks.

“I hate him,” he says in that low, angry voice that scares Jon a little bit. “Why can’t he – he’s so fucking _selfish_ , why can’t he see that—” He breaks off, and Jon doesn’t know what to say. He reaches out cautiously, as though he’s approaching a wild animal, and because Spencer only slouches forward a little bit more, he rubs his back slowly, circles spreading out over the dark cotton t-shirt, something radiant.

“I know,” Jon says, and Spencer looks at him with a gaze that says _no, you don’t, but I forgive you, anyway._

“Come on, then,” Spencer says, and rubs his hand over his eyes, and they turn back from the road. And for the second time in months, Spencer leans up against Jon, and in a small, hurried voice against Jon’s sleeve, says, “I really want to tell you something, I really want. Jon, I want to, I do.”

“So tell me,” Jon says, and Spencer shakes his head, looks away.

“I can’t,” he says, and that’s that.

 

 

 

Jon sits by the couch and watches Ryan and Brendon play a video game. It’s an involved sort of watching, different from the exhausted way they usually crumble to the floor after a day of interviews, because there are things to keep track of (he catalogues them neatly in his head: (1) Ryan playing a video game at all, as when he became a “famous rockstar” he also apparently became too cool for that stuff, (2) Brendon’s triumphant whoops as his car slams into Ryan’s, (3) the way they bump shoulders, Brendon steering with his whole body as opposed to Ryan’s quick thumb work, veering to the left and dropping his head on Ryan’s shoulder with a goofy grin for a moment, and (4) the brightness in Ryan’s eyes that could be tiredness or his lack of familiarity with the flashing lights of the video game, or it could be something entirely different).

When Spencer traces over his hand, resting on the couch next to him, then, Jon jumps a little and laughs quietly, muttering, _way to freak me out_. Spencer takes no notice, but picks up his hand, turns it over to look at his palm, plays with his fingers absently.

“You’ve cut yourself,” he says groggily, in the half-surprised tone that tells Jon he’s almost asleep.

“I caught it with a can opener,” Jon answers absently. He watches Brendon, watches the way he takes his fingers away with furtive deliberation from the controls for the split second it takes Ryan to get in front of him. _Now who’s good at video games?_ Ryan shouts triumphantly, and Brendon tackles him to the ground and sits on him. Ryan is struggling and laughing and—

(Jon’s skin _tightens_ for a moment, and there is an odd, almost electrical shock coursing through his blood. Spencer drops his hand.)

—Jon takes his finger to his mouth and sucks it immediately, instinctively. When he takes it away, the cut is gone.

“Spence,” he says, “Spence.”

But Spencer is asleep.

 

 

 

One night it rains and rains, the slow patter-pitter (or something?) of things beyond the window. Jon wakes up early in the morning when Ryan slips in next to him. He yawns and rolls over a little bit so that Ryan has more room, and then after a while when he sort of manages to comprehend through the haze of sleep that Ryan’s still awake he whispers, “You okay?”

“It’s not,” Ryan begins, and then stops, frustrated. Jon waits. “It’s not because you – you weren’t here from the beginning or anything, you know?”

“What?” Jon says, and there’s the creepy unease back, the one that lived in his gut for a while during the first few weeks.

“It’s – I wouldn’t – _we_ wouldn’t, tell, I mean, but – it’s hard. We _tried_. I don’t – Jon. Jon.”

“Ryan,” Jon says, “Ryan, are you kicking me out of the band? At three o’ clock in the morning? In your pajamas? ‘Cause that would be really low.”

“ _No_ ,” Ryan breathes against his neck. “ _No_ , Jon, no. I just.” He stops. “Go back to sleep. It doesn’t matter.”

(The next morning, Ryan says something in a low voice to Spencer when he’s washing dishes. Spencer swears loudly and drops a plate. Jon and Brendon whisper, confer plans of attack, ways and means, red dotted lines of territories on crisp military maps, and Spencer walks out saying, “No, Ryan, fuck _you_.”)

 

 

 

It’s cold outside. Ryan is complaining and Spencer looks disgusted but Brendon refused to shut up once he got the idea and so they’ve trooped out to that stupid hoop and Brendon is bouncing around trying not to trip over the basketball. Ryan is surreptitiously texting someone, and Spencer just taps at his legs, impatient. Jon steals the ball off Brendon and heads off down the “court”, shoots and misses, remembers why he decided to play bass rather than join the basketball team.

Brendon rushes past and half grabs, half _kicks_ the ball out from Jon’s cold hands, and Spencer laughs at Jon’s surprised face. Brendon turns around and pouts suggestively at them, then launches himself through the air.

(He is too small. He is tiny like all of them, bones pointing out from the cloth, able to fit into all the miniscule places of the bus, in cupboards and between the cushions of the couch, if he only draws his knees up. He is far, far too small, but somewhere in the space of Jon breathing out a small cloud Brendon jumps and is swinging off the hoop.)

“Wow,” Jon gasps. “Fuck, man, how did you – you were all the way over – how did you?”

Ryan turns around and walks away, looking furious. Brendon looks at Ryan’s back, and then at Jon, wide-eyed. “What d’you mean? I was like, right there. Nice shot, though, yeah?” And then before Jon can reply he’s bounding after Ryan, and even though Brendon really doesn’t run, he _bounces_ , he looks heavy and fumbling with every knock of his shoes against the pavement.

 

 

 

“Is Ryan,” Jon begins one night, hesitantly.

Spencer looks up sharply, hackles up, and Jon bites back the words _down, boy_. “Is Ryan what?”

Jon looks at Spencer evenly. “Is he pissed at me?”

“What?” Spencer looks vaguely amazed. “No, of course not.”

“He seems edgy around me. I just – I don’t want to fuck something up.”

Spencer darts around the table to him and grabs Jon’s face in his hands, kisses him roughly on the mouth, just the few seconds it takes for Jon to notice how warm he is, and how he tastes like peanut brittle. “He’s _not_ ,” Spencer grits out. “He’s _not_ , Jon, I _promise_.”

 

 

 

They both go to bed pretty soon after that, Spencer looking a little bit pink around his ears, and the next day he doesn’t say anything about it. Jon figures it must be just another part of the bit where most of the band are lying around on each other half the time and it gets hard drawing the boundary lines now and again.

He shrugs and puts the kiss away somewhere secret, where it won’t matter.

 

 

 

He wonders about things, though: the dynamics of things. Ryan playing video games with Brendon once in a blue moon, or Spencer making coffee in the morning, measuring out grains in shining silver. Jon doesn’t quite understand it all; he feels almost on the brink of something, some great discovery that will make everything fit into place.

(One night, he hears Ryan’s shuddering breath. Hidden by the curtain of his bunk there is a golden-red glow, and two silhouettes. Brendon is whispering _come on, come on, you can do it, come_ on _, Ry_. The light is nothing like torchlight. Later, in the morning, though, Ryan acts like normal, and Jon is sure he has dreamed it. He thinks of Brendon’s voice soaring out over the blue-grey scream of faces – _I said sometimes I don’t know_.)

 

 

 

It’s one of the stopover nights, in the middle of nowhere, when there’s golden fields all around and nobody else on the road for hours. Spencer shakes him awake at half past two in the morning, and then grips at his sleeve.

“We have to,” he says, and stops. “Come on,” he says, and guides Jon outside.

“What are we—” Jon begins, and then stops when he sees Brendon leaning over the top of the bus and grinning at him. Ryan appears next to him and in the dim light of the stars he looks more alive than ever.

“Coming up?” Spencer says, and they clamber up with the use of (1) a wooden box procured from God knows where, (2) some helpfully placed scratches and ledges in the bus and (3) a lot of pulling and shoving. Finally, they sit on the roof, and Jon dangles his legs over the top, wishing he’d thought to bring a jumper.

“Cool,” he says eventually, and wonders what this is about. They’ve obviously climbed up a hundred times before, but there is no real sense of tradition or ritual about sitting up here, and really, the whole air is more expectant than anything else. Something’s waiting.

Brendon stands up and bounces impatiently on his feet, making a slightly muffled racket. Ryan stands up too and shushes him, and then they’re _all_ standing up, arms crossed, watching each other.

“So,” Spencer says. “We think we need to tell you something.”

“Okay,” Jon says slowly.

“It’s about… things that you might have… noticed, I guess,” Ryan says, and he has that expression that he gets when he’s writing, picking each word carefully, every syllable a name for a baby or something of equal importance. “We – there’s something – we can—”

At this stage, Brendon gets bored and jumps off the roof.

 

 

 

There is, of course, the slight moment of _oh god_ , when Jon thinks rapidly of the fact that the bus is _high_ , that Brendon’s going to break his leg or maybe his neck or – and then he realises that Brendon should have landed quite a long time ago.

Brendon hasn’t landed. Brendon is, in fact, higher. His face is turned upwards towards the great yellow moon, and from the angle he’s at all Jon can see is an incredible fierce joy, as Brendon soars higher and higher, shoulder blades pointing back to them.

“Er,” Jon says, and Brendon whirls around, dives back towards them. He pulls up abruptly near the roof and then is standing there, Just Brendon, but his feet are not quite touching the metal roof. There are only a few centimetres of air between Brendon’s socks and the roof, but Jon feels dizzy. Absently, he thinks: _taller_.

“You can,” Jon whispers, and Brendon laughs, noisily, beautifully. He looks bright in the dark, that terrible, wild joy still vibrant on his features. Somewhere, through the shock, Jon feels the photographer in him memorising the moment: (1) the full, yellow moon, (2) Spencer’s face in shadows, (3) Brendon’s huge, all-encompassing happiness and (4) Ryan’s eyes fixed on Brendon, expression almost startled.

“Fly,” Spencer says, almost kindly, and steps forward. “Yeah. And I can heal – people. And animals. And Ryan can—” He looks at Ryan, almost helplessly.

Ryan looks tired, skin stretched thin. He holds out his hand, snaps his fingers and whispers, “Boom.” Flames spring abruptly from his hand, a crackling, dancing mess of light. It casts shadows, and Ryan is hidden by the sudden radiance leaping out from his skin. Jon thinks, quietly: _curtains_.

“How?” he manages to whisper eventually.

Spencer shrugs. “We don’t know. They just – it started _happening_ , a couple of months after Brendon joined the band. Brent – he never, I mean, he didn’t do anything. But Pete – I mean, he doesn’t _know_ about what we can – we’ve never, you’re the first person we’ve ever told – apart from Brent, of course, but he didn’t know, he just… found out, same time as us. But Pete, he, he told us that after he spent that first week with us for a while things were kind of weird. He could – he kept going transparent, sort of, almost invisible but not quite? Smoky. And then it just stopped. He didn’t. Brendon thinks we rubbed off on him,” and he smiles, finally, almost sheepishly.

“And how do you… I mean, how come no one knows?”

“We’ve had some close calls,” Brendon admits. “It’s hard – once I realised I could – could _fly_ I wanted to just do it all the time. And sometimes I forget and kind of, I dunno, float on stage or whatever. And Ryan—” He looked at Ryan quickly. Ryan’s mouth twisted. “—when he gets angry or upset or whatever, he does it by accident. Spence just has good self-control, I guess, he never does it.” (He has, though, once, and Jon remembers. The tightening of his skin. The exact opposite of the nick of the knife.) “And we didn’t—”

“We’re not _freaks_ ,” Ryan breaks in harshly. “There’s nothing _wrong_ with us.”

“I – I know,” Jon says, startled, and then he looks at Ryan, stronger, trying to show him _something_ , prove something. “I know, Ryan.”

“It just happened,” Ryan whispers. “We don’t know why. It just happened.”

“Wow,” Jon says, and then he laughs a little bit. “Wow.”

 

 

 

Jon doesn’t like to be contradictory, but he thinks it anyway: it changes everything, and nothing.

It changes everything because for a whole day, driving through the rain, Brendon floats horizontally in the air after Jon, resting his chin on his shoulder now and again, singing in his ear when he’s not expecting it, blowing on his neck and then making a hasty retreat to the ceiling, banging against it with such volume that there is no way Jon could fail to notice.

It changes everything because Ryan doesn’t stalk off after a fight, anymore, with that odd, hurried gait that made his movements jerky; he just turns, slightly, hunches his shoulders around the flame that he can’t control. He looks embarrassed, often, but Jon doesn’t blink anymore, only does what he always did to smooth out the fights.

And Spencer, Spencer will brush past him with cool fingers and the ache of stiffness in his neck will just vanish. It’s hard to get used to it, at first, of course, and one day Jon slouches around the bus feeling awful after a night with the Academy, until Spencer says, “What’s up?”

“Hangover,” he mumbles, and Ryan and Brendon swing around to look at him as though he’s an idiot. Spencer only blinks politely.

“You… enjoy having a hangover?” he enquires, trying not to laugh, and Jon catches on and grins stupidly. Spencer grabs his hand for a moment and squeezes it, and Jon closes his eyes for a moment, the weird pressure still unfamiliar, as his head clears and he gulps in air.

“I think I’ll keep you,” he says, finally and Ryan laughs, unexpectedly.

It changes nothing because it is still them, on stage with the blur of lights and Brendon’s (Ryan’s) voice reaching and reaching, and that, Jon thinks, should have been his first clue that Brendon could fly.

 

 

 

The thing is, for a second it’s almost normal: the perfect, deafening sound of their instruments together, and when Brendon is quiet Jon thinks for a moment that he’s just finished the phrase – before he realises that Brendon’s on the ground, small and black and he walks over, dumps his bass somewhere, he doesn’t know.

In the crowd of them he sees the whiteness of Ryan’s face, and grabs his hands. “Come on,” he whispers, words springing to his lips with the memory of that night – fire against the curtains. He’s not as good at it as Brendon, but he tries. “Come on, Ry, you can do it, come on. Hold on.”

Ryan looks at him and says nothing – his hands are shaking but they are cold, very, very cold, and Jon meets Spencer’s gaze with a nod. “Okay,” he murmurs. “Okay, yeah. It’ll be okay.”

Brendon mumbles something and Jon realises his own hands are shaking, too. “It’ll be okay,” he says again, but not to Ryan, this time.

 

 

 

“Seriously,” Brendon says, “I’ll be fine,” but he walks with calculated, deliberate steps, and he doesn’t shake off Ryan’s arm. Jon walks on the other side of him, Spencer just behind, like an honour guard. They kind of fall into the bus, and Jon goes off to make hot chocolate while Spencer practically shoves Brendon on the couch.

Ryan just stands awkwardly at the end and watches him.

“You wanna watch a movie or something?” Spencer asks briskly.

Brendon says, “Are you my mom?” Spencer just looks at him and Brendon smiles a little. “I’m alright.”

“You wanna play Halo?” Ryan asks, almost tentatively, and Spencer doesn’t even look at him; knows that this is one of those few times when yes, alright, Ryan will play a video game.

Brendon looks uncomfortable. “I’m sorta tired,” he says, eventually, and Jon appears balancing four hot mugs and a quilt hung around his shoulders. Somehow without spilling anything on anyone, he manages to unload the hot chocolate and drape the quilt ceremoniously over Brendon.

“Go to sleep,” Spencer says. “We’ll stay out here.”

Brendon makes a face, and then kind of rolls over and does, after all, go to sleep, easily, without any of the ridiculous half-awake comments that he’ll usually make, and Jon bites his lip and doesn’t like it.

The rest of them sit around the couch and half-talk, occasional comments in the silence until finally Spencer grabs a random game and he and Jon battle with the volume turned down. Later, at around two in the morning, they’ll turn around to see Ryan asleep, too, under the quilt, half-curled around Brendon.

Jon thinks: _round here we stay up very, very, very, very late._

 

 

 

The slow blur of weeks: concert after concert after concert – interviewers that make Jon laugh, interviewers that make him furious, interviewers that just _confuse_ him (seriously, how long does it take to say a single question?). Some nights, if they’re in the middle of nowhere and there’s clouds, Brendon will sneak out, and sometimes Jon will watch inconspicuously from the window as Brendon soars up and disappears. Sometimes, Ryan will come and stand beside him and watch, too, but never for very long.

One of these times, Ryan turns to Jon and says, “You know, he took me, once.”

“Flying?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.” Jon is quiet for a moment, because Ryan has that odd, closed-up look to his face. “What was it like?” he ventures after a while.

Ryan smiles. “We couldn’t get very high. Brendon’s not strong enough. But – it was pretty cool.”

“Pretty cool?” Jon echoes mockingly. “You went _flying_ and it was pretty cool?”

Ryan laughs. “It was terrifying,” he says. “It was – everything looks different. Even when you’re not that high. The dark is clearer. Or something.”

 _Or something_ , Jon thinks, and nods.

 

 

 

Things finish, as they are prone to doing. Jon goes home, retraces his old haunts, DJs at a few places, hangs out with old friends, tries to get his cats to remember who the fuck he is. And though he assures himself that he’s Having Fun and Completely Fine his fingers start to get sore from texting, and he talks for hours on the phone every day.

Until finally he locks up his house again and slings bags over his shoulders and catches the plane he’s been waiting for. They meet him at the airport and melt seamlessly around him, the bump of shoulders, Ryan’s low monotone, Brendon’s babble tripping over itself again and again – Spencer’s smile.

 

 

 

They take over the cabin in a day, spreading out everywhere, creating sandwiches the like of which mankind has never before seen and also happen to leave a colossal mess on the counters, tinkering around in the rehearsing space (Brendon launching into a triumphant _A Whole New World_ for old times sake), jumping on _all_ of the beds without exception, pinning Ryan down while Brendon plays Guitar Hero very, very loudly.

That night, though, they don’t go back to individual beds; they pull out sleeping bags and sprawl around the living room, indulging in a brief tussle over who gets the couch (Ryan wins), setting out the four or five movies they’re going to attempt to watch. Jon leans back and grins, because Brendon’s almost _permanently_ floating, because Ryan’s laughing, because Spencer keeps looking at him with that odd smile in his eyes.

When they wake up the next morning, with cricks in their necks and stiff arms and legs (except Ryan, who was perfectly comfortable on the couch, and Brendon to an extent, who snuck up on the couch when everyone else was asleep after all) they decide unanimously to sleep in their own beds from now on. For most of the stay, they keep to this pact.

 

 

 

The morning it happens Jon is making pancakes, Brendon is racketing around upstairs looking for something, Ryan is reading a book on the couch, and Spencer is sitting at the kitchen table flicking idly through a magazine. Jon staggers backwards, bangs on the table once to get Spencer’s attention, and then flicks his wrist and sends the pancake flying upwards and then back onto the pan.

“Impressive,” Spencer grins, and goes back to the magazine while Jon puts that pancake on the growing pile of cooked ones. “Haven’t you made enough yet?” Spencer adds, glancing at the plate with twenty or so pancakes on them.

“I haven’t made enough for _Brendon_ yet, let alone Ryan,” Jon answers, and pours more mixture on. There is comfortable quiet for a little while, and then Spencer’s chair scrapes back and Jon follows the sound of his footsteps to feel him at his side. “Hmmn?” he says.

Spencer tilts Jon’s chin towards him and kisses him, almost gently, and though this time Spencer tastes like coffee he is still warm, warm against Jon’s skin.

They break away and Jon releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Spencer looks straight at him, and Jon takes Spencer’s face in his hands, kisses him again, hard, backing him up against the counter. Jon’s shaking, he realises suddenly, almost embarrassed, but Spencer makes a small noise against his mouth and he closes his eyes, presses closer.

Brendon’s footsteps rocket down the stairs and they break away dizzily, Jon jolting back to conscientiously watching the (burning) pancake, Spencer hurrying back to his chair. It turns out Brendon isn’t even going into the kitchen – they hear him talking breathlessly to Ryan, spelling out some brilliant new idea, though his voice is indistinct – and they just stand there, red-lipped, breathing a little erratic. Spencer laughs, finally, and Jon turns around and grins at him.

 

 

 

That night Jon is almost-asleep when Spencer appears at the door, hesitating for a moment before Jon beckons him in. Spencer crawls across the bed and Jon drags fingers through his hair, lets Spencer push him back against his pillows. When they kiss, again, Spencer whispers, “We really shouldn’t,” and in the soft consonants of the words it sounds like _Cassie_ , sounds like _Haley_.

Jon says, “I know,” but drags Spencer’s shirt off anyway.

 

 

 

They sprawl out around the room, Brendon fiddling with his sidekick, Jon and Spencer lying side by side, sharing a pair of headphones. Jon hates being cliché, he really does, but he can feel every spot where their skin meets: the brush of Spencer’s hand against his ribs, the warmth against his shin, the crossroads of their shoulders.

He’s distracted, though, only half-listening to the music. He has the feeling he’s finally figured something out, watching Ryan take quick, fleeting glances over the top of his book at Brendon. He swivels his head and Spencer’s watching _him_ (Jon thinks that really Brendon should be watching Spencer, so it’s all full circle, and bites back a self-conscious laugh).

He opens his mouth to say something, he’s not quite sure, and Spencer nods, just once. “Yeah,” he murmurs, almost a sigh, in the slight pause between songs, and Jon closes his eyes and lets his hand fall on Spencer’s arm. “Later,” Spencer says, and goes quiet.

 

 

 

Later, though, when it finally comes, ends up being the hungry press of Spencer’s mouth against Jon’s collarbone, clothes unshed hastily, the hot drag of their skin. Jon bites at Spencer’s shoulder so as not to make a noise; Spencer grinds back up against him and twists to curl fingers around his jaw and kiss him. They breathe in together.

 

 

 

There is nothing in the world so beautiful, Jon thinks, as Ryan playing guitar. Spencer on drums is spectacular, with the blinding nights and the sweep of his hair; Brendon singing and reaching for something that you’d always thought unreachable can make you _feel_ like nothing else; Patrick’s voice and Pete’s words break your heart and Gerard’s sincerity heals it; William asleep is breathtaking and Greta and Chris singing together reminds you of home, but it’s Ryan playing guitar that makes everything else in the world somehow irrelevant.

Jon watches things – that’s what he’s _good_ at, a photographer with light and focus filtering everything he sees until it is clear and concise and he can understand it. He’s used to watching things unfold, the slow crawl of a heartbeat, the amber warmth of a smile after a fight. He belongs in these places, watching, waiting, and he knows the secret about them that stops him from ever feeling lonely (if you know the shadows well enough you find that they have spotlights, too).

But Brendon doesn’t belong in those places – small as he is, he doesn’t _fit_ – and that’s why Jon gets an uneasy jolt of surprise when he sees him there, in another doorway, shadows making his expression unreadable. His eyes look uncannily alive in the dark, and in the dark, there is a great mass of shadows at his back that stir, just softly enough that Jon thinks for one dizzy moment that he has wings.

Jon almost takes a step forward, until he sees Spencer in the final doorway, the curl of his body almost leonine, protective, his eyes fixed on Jon with a quiet warning. He shakes his head, only just perceptibly, and Jon leans back against the doorway and follows the path left by the two other gazes back to Ryan.

He’s half-sitting on the couch, back curved around the guitar, head down. He follows a quick succession of chords like an obvious yellow ribbon, and then becomes hesitant, fingers curling slowly around G, A minor. He hums something indistinct under his breath, not quite forming words, and Brendon shudders. He breathes out a phrase (Jon hears _the lights, the lights_ , but there is something about the awkward whisper that makes him sure that Spencer has heard something different, and Brendon something else again), and smiles.

After a while, his fingers stop fumbling, and he is surer, confident in it, head nodding along. Jon sees Spencer tap an experimental beat against one folded arm, and for a moment thinks he can see the flash of stadium lights.

Ryan stands up abruptly and cricks his neck back with a groan, and sees Brendon.

Spencer disappears without pretence or dramatics; simply slides away, shoving his hands into pinstriped pockets. Jon starts to move away, but can’t help but linger, reluctantly, wanting to see how the scene ends.

“How long have you been there?” Ryan asks, surprised.

“It sounds good,” Brendon says, face caught in the slow shift of the shadows as the sun moves into late afternoon. He strolls forward, picks up a guitar in a slow, easy gesture. “Show me how it goes?”

 

 

 

In the stumble of the afternoon then, dizzyingly conscious of the story being played out behind the half-closed door, Jon will see it all play before his eyes as though he was really there. He has an odd urge to know it precisely, but has to settle with half-formed ideas, imagine with clumsy images and words how it could have happened: the fierce, colliding press of their bodies, Brendon grabbing at Ryan’s face, noses bumping, the awful rush of their mouths; breaking apart to stare, Ryan greedily, angrily, Brendon wide-eyed, a perpetual sense of wonder playing about his mouth.

Jon fits in what he and Spencer heard from the next room into the story: Brendon’s sharp breath, the bang of guitars slipping from the couch – and what he saw, passing by the doorway, following Spencer’s unsure gaze: the blur and tumble of their bodies, a rush of limbs, and cloth yellow-red-white-black. Ryan’s wide eyes, Brendon biting at Ryan’s palms, a hissed _fuck_ , and Spencer grabs Jon’s hand, drags him away.

He’s not sure if it’s _wrong_ , but he imagines it anyway, through the hot urgent press of Spencer’s mouth. Sees Ryan fumble at Brendon’s jeans, the muttering of excuses and _we shouldn’t_ because Ryan and Spencer are utterly different and perfectly alike and they both would have said the same thing, Jon thinks, guesses, something.

He wonders how a photographer would save it: snapshots of the coloured awkwardness of it, tangle of limbs; then the fall of Ryan’s hair when he gasps, arching back, clutching at Brendon’s shirt. He wonders how a musician would remember it: Brendon’s dark, _dark_ eyes; their combined, erratic breathing.

Jon opens his eyes, lets out a sharp breath, and presses against Spencer’s tight coiled warmth until that is all that his mind can contain.

 

 

 

The next afternoon, Brendon is nowhere to be found, and Ryan curls on the couch watching _Moulin Rouge_ for the seven hundredth time. Spencer and Jon talk in drowsy voices until eventually Ewan McGregor runs up onto the elephant head or whatever and sings _love lifts us up where we belong_ and Ryan snaps for them to shut up.

“It’s not as if you haven’t seen this hundreds of times,” Spencer complains, but Ryan holds a finger to his lips and Jon laughs and goes to sit with him on the couch. Spencer rolls his eyes and wanders off.

Somewhere towards the end, Ryan’s sidekick beeps and he fishes it out, flushes crimson at a message, meets Jon’s eyes uneasily. Jon shrugs and looks away.

“What does she say?” he asks quietly.

“Nothing. I dunno, nothing important.” Ryan tucks the sidekick away, shifts into a more comfortable position. For a little while there is silence, and then Jon stands up, yawns and says something about going to find Spencer. He leaves _and Brendon_ unsaid.

“I don’t,” Ryan says, making him turn around.

“What?”

“I don’t,” and he stops again, biting his lip, searching for words. “I really like her, Jon.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I don’t know why—”

Suddenly, Jon is inexpressibly angry, frustration welling up in him. He looks at Ryan, and snaps, “It’s because she can’t _fly_ , Ryan.”

He walks out, Ryan staring after him.

 

 

 

Brendon arrives back at eight o’clock, clattering through the door with the bang of keys being tossed somewhere and bumping into something. He is walking firmly on the ground, Jon can’t help but notice when he arrives to grin at him, Spencer and Ryan close behind him.

“Where’d you go?” Spencer asks, shoving hair back behind his ears, voice deliberately calm.

Brendon shrugs, “Around.”

For a moment, there is an awkward silence, and then Brendon looks straight over Jon’s shoulder to Ryan. “I’ve got music,” he says abruptly, and Ryan raises an eyebrow.

“What kind of music?”

“For the lyrics you wrote the other day,” Brendon answers. “That night we had the Halo tournament.”

Ryan narrows his eyes. “Who said you could read them?”

“No one,” Brendon says breezily. “I’ve got music for them, that’s all.” He turns and half-runs down the steps towards the practice space, shouting, “Coming?” over his shoulder.

Jon shrugs and follows, wondering what sort of a game this is now, and whether there are any rules that he can hope to understand.

 

 

 

The cabin becomes oddly silent, dark and constrained despite the fact that – superficially, at least – they never really become any quieter. The atmosphere is heavy; the air seems to take more effort to move through it, a taste in the air that is metallic and stings at cuts on your tongue, makes your hands shake.

There is a languor about the place, but it doesn’t match in on itself: golden sunshine on freezing winter days or something equally incompatible; _or something or something or something_ , Jon thinks, and feels the burn of Spencer’s fingers on his skin, the heavy yawn of old bruises on his hipbones, dig of nails into his back.

Jon wonders about things: talking to Frank, him vowing (through laughter and _no, no, I know it sounds like shit, man, you’ve got to believe me_ ) that the place they recorded in was haunted; wonders if music is something so desperately alive that some kind of ghost escapes from every new song ever made, if the gloom of the cabin is something like that. Then he feels like an idiot, and goes off to play video games with Brendon or kiss Spencer, something that makes him conscious of the boundaries between being alive and being dead.

It doesn’t hinder writing the music, anyway; they write and write and write until Jon’s head spins with a dizzying muddle of melodies, fingers picking out the backbone to it all, throat humming with the thudding simplicity of Spencer’s drums.

This is the last safe place, he thinks, when they press together in the closeness of them, in the slow spread of something vaguely wondrous – particles lifting and reaching and knitting together, when they remember the screams of the people below them and the way the stage shook under their feet. These are the times, with the sense of that around them, that Ryan closes his eyes, and smiles. Once, just once, Brendon’s voice faltered watching him.

Yet even their music is not enough for comfort anymore: Brendon sings with a strange viciousness, the frightening quality of it just vague enough for Jon to never be quite sure whether it’s real or not. He closes his eyes and leans close and Jon sees Ryan watching without meaning to, the red curve of Brendon’s mouth, the thin strength, the jut of his hips.

He’s not quite sure what’s going on between them, but he thinks Spencer has a fairly good idea, and that’s enough for him to feel safe. All Jon knows are the details of things: the bitter twist of Brendon’s mouth some mornings over breakfast; the smell of smoke, of things burning, drifting from Ryan’s room at night; the nights where they both disappear, sometimes out upwards into the country around here, sometimes taking the car, sometimes just to a corner of the house, and then emerging hours later with messed hair and slightly glazed eyes; and the nights Brendon bangs out of the house and launches himself up into the sky, higher and higher until they can’t see him anymore.

And with all of this he knows that somehow they haven’t made the unspoken compromise that Jon and Spencer did, that they haven’t been able to leave girls behind in the cities, in the grey smoke of tall buildings and normality (or as normal as it gets for them, anyway). Jon wonders what is the better thing to do; which betrayal is softer.

In any case, the air is getting thicker, and Brendon flies higher and higher.

 

 

 

Jon wakes coughing, gagging on the thick roll of smoke across his face. Spencer’s fingers are gripping at his shoulders and he’s shouting, desperate words that can hardly be heard over the soft _boom_ of something in the kitchen and glass shattering.

Jon sits up and coughs more, drawing his knees up to his chest while Spencer tugs uselessly at his arm, until finally he sees Spencer’s lips shape the words _fire_ and he thinks _we have to get out of here_. He stands up and tries to get some sense of what’s going on, peering through the grey haze. He can see the flicker of hungry red down the corridor, but coming closer and closer, and he drags Spencer to him, covers them both with a blanket, and close to the ground they crawl through the doorway and towards the living room.

Spencer shouts, close to Jon’s ear, “My drums!” Jon only looks at him, shakes his head; Spencer’s face twists in despair.

“Where’s Ryan and Bren?” Jon shouts, stumbling forward, half-standing, half-crawling, crouched close.

“I don’t – I don’t know, but I think I saw – they’re together, it’s okay, it’s—”

“Okay,” Jon says. “Okay, come on.”

They fall out the front door at the same time most of the windows finally explode, and they duck forward, tripping over their own feet. A piece of glass lodges in Jon’s arm; he swears and pulls it out, wincing at the sting and the welling of blood. Spencer lays his hand over the cut absently, and Jon shivers when it seals up, the pain disappearing as suddenly as it came.

“Where’s – where’s Ry?” Spencer says suddenly. “Fuck, Jon, Jon, they’re not here – where are – _Ryan_!” He wheels around, shouting through smoke-clogged lungs. “Come on, come on – _Brendon_! _Ryan_! Where the – where are you?’

Jon whirls around, joins Spencer in shouting, doubling over to cough every now and again, and then wheels back around to search for silhouettes in the glow of the house. Spencer moves to surge back to the house; Jon grabs tight to his arm.

“No,” he breathes. “No, Spence.”

Spencer spins and beats frantically at Jon’s restraining hand, until Jon pulls him close to hold him still and presses close, trying to breathe properly, shaking, and Spencer never stops struggling, not until Jon finally whispers, “Oh, thank God,” and Spencer looks to see a thin shadow of a person emerge from the burning cabin.

Spencer runs forward and grabs Ryan, drags him towards them. He’s coughing and trying to speak at the same time, so he sort of falls in a heap when he reaches Jon. Spencer sinks to the ground and cradles him in his arms, whispering something, eyes closed. Ryan coughs and coughs and then shakes Spencer off, stands up.

“Brendon,” he says, eyes wild. “Jon, Jon, Brendon’s – I don’t know where he is, I think he’s still in the house, I don’t know.”

“What? I thought – Spence said he saw you with him, Ry, Ry—”

“He _was_! He was there in the smoke and I had his hand and then I don’t – he disappeared, I lost, I couldn’t find him, and I couldn’t see anything and _God_ ,Jon, _he’s still in there_.”

“Right,” Jon says, and blinks, eyes watering, though from the smoke or something else he can’t tell. “I’ll just—” and he half-runs forward, until the heat of the house drives him back, coughing again. “I can’t,” he says. “I can’t, it’s too hot. Please, Ry, don’t – Spencer can, can fix him.”

“Spencer can’t heal someone if they’re _dead_ ,” Ryan spits, and turns back to the house.

“Please,” Spencer says uselessly. “Please, Ryan, it’ll be okay.”

“We fought,” Ryan says, in a tiny voice, and Jon stares at him, thinks _no, no, God, no_. “We – we fought,” Ryan says again, and Jon thinks _stop talking, just shut up, please stop talking_ , but Ryan doesn’t; his words tumble out in a awful mesh of a cracked voice, shaking hands (Jon thinks for a terrible moment he can see flame lingering still on Ryan’s long fingers). “I can’t – I lost control and – _everything_ went up, I – I touched the bed by accident and then it spread, it was crazy, like – like gasoline was there or _something_ , and I couldn’t – Spence, Spence, I _didn’t mean to_!”

“Ryan,” Spencer says. “Ryan, no.”

“It’s my fault,” Ryan says, eyes fixed on the red glow of the cabin. “It’s my fault.”

 

 

 

Later, Jon will realise that the whole thing really only took about half an hour or so, but it seemed like hours, and it seemed like a week, a month, a _year_ before Ryan finally made that choked little cry and staggered forward. The figure that had smashed through the roof of the house moved almost sluggishly through the air, sinking now and again close to the flames making Ryan smother a cry every time.

Eventually, the shadow drifts out over the grass and sinks slowly towards the ground. When he’s close enough to reach, Ryan grabs at him and pulls him close, arms around him, trembling. He presses his face into Brendon’s hair and closes his eyes, while Spencer and Jon came closer, instincts warring whether to leave them alone or to touch Brendon too, make sure he was safe, _alive_.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan breathes, “Oh, God, I’m so sorry, I can’t – I never meant to – Brendon, _Bren_ , you know I don’t—”

“You’re crushing me,” Brendon croaks, and Ryan loosens his grip a bit, holds Brendon’s face and looks intently at him.

“You _know_ I don’t hate you,” he whispers. “Bren, you _know_ I don’t. I love you, God, don’t, don’t ever, please.”

Brendon looks awkward, scarily still in the glow of the flames and the moon. He reaches out and touches Ryan’s cheek, says softly, “Are you crying?”

 

 

 

“Last day of freedom!” Brendon shouts, swinging into Jon’s bedroom and knocking over two chairs and a bookstand in the process. Ryan follows after him, scratching tiredly at his head, his bleary gaze making it clear that he, too, is unwilling to be awake at this hour. Jon tries to answer, something like _what the fuck are you doing out of bed this early_ or even just _go away_ for impact’s sake but ends up just making an odd grunting noise.

“Urie, I swear to God I’m going to murder you one day,” Spencer snarls, arriving at the door. “Why you think we need to get up early on the last day—”

“Of freedom!” Brendon shouts again, unwilling to be sidetracked. He beams. “Tour tomorrow, time to get up and go… do shit!” Absently, he rubs at his arm, where the only scar from the fire Spencer couldn’t get rid of lingers. Ryan, despite his sleepiness, notices too, and he reaches out to touch it too, hand closing around the cloth that hides the scar. Brendon looks at him with surprising warmth (which is even _more_ nauseating this side of eight AM), and then rolls his eyes.

“Time to get up!” he repeats, and Jon makes a superhuman effort to take the pillow off of his head and blink at them in the yellow morning light. Spencer smiles at him and for a moment he blinks; some part of him is yet to become used to that variety of Spencer’s smiles, and his heart contracts once in a disgustingly girly way.

“I’m up,” he says, sitting up, and Brendon glares.

“You are _not_ ,” he says, hopping around on one foot, and opens his mouth to say something else, but instead staggers into a shelf and from up above, Jon’s iPod clatters off to fall onto the floor, and smash.

Well, _almost_.

As it falls, Jon says, “Shit!” and reaches out his hand reflexively. The iPod stops in mid-air and quivers for a moment, then jumps into his hand.

“Arr,” Jon says. Ryan and Brendon blink at him, but Spencer is laughing, slow comprehension dawning in his eyes.

“Hey, Freakboy,” Spencer says, grinning. “Are you magic or something?”


End file.
